


an echo of the beyond

by blazeofglory



Category: Game of Thrones (TV), Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Game of Thrones Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Loras!Merlin, M/M, Reincarnation, Renly!Arthur, almost poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 04:05:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3367142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blazeofglory/pseuds/blazeofglory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin dreams of dragons. </p>
<p>(Merlin is losing his mind.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	an echo of the beyond

**Author's Note:**

> I really need to stop writing fics in this style, but I can't help it.

Merlin dreams of dragons.

He feels ridiculous about it, and he tells no one, but the dreams do not stop. There are different dragons, some big and some small, some wise and old—and some cruel. Some are not dragons at all, but shapeless demons in the nights, mere shadows on walls. Merlin wakes up in cold sweats more often than not, a scream on his lips and the smell of fire and ash in his nose.

The dreams had started when he was a child; he doesn’t remember the first one, really, but he feels as if he’s been having them his whole life. He has never not been afraid.

There’s something about the dreams that puts Merlin on edge. A normal dream, a normal _nightmare_ , doesn’t feel like this. The dragon dreams feel so _real_ , so _terrifying,_ he wakes each morning half-expecting to find a monster looming over his bed.

Sometimes, only _sometimes_ , once in a blue moon, the dreams go further than the usual terror. Some nights, he wakes and he is in his dream, in the world of dragons and monsters. It is an old world, far removed from his real life; with kings and knights and _fire_ , a woman in red, a crimson comet in the sky, a promise of _war,_ and a great wall made of ice… Arthur is there, sometimes.

The man is always a blurry face, but Merlin knows it’s Arthur; he would know him anywhere, in any lifetime, in any strange place. Arthur in his dream wears a crown, but the crown is not his—not legally, not properly; he is not really a king, and Merlin wakes up wondering if that’s what the war they were fighting was all about. A battle of kings? A fight to put Arthur on the throne?

Merlin fears he’s going mad. The dreams feel more real than his actual life sometimes; as if going to classes and work and living in a tiny dorm is the nightmare, the monotonous day to day life what he dreams of in his fantasy world at night…

He takes sleeping pills and hopes to make it through a night peacefully. The dragons come anyway.

Sometimes, _sometimes,_ in the worst dreams, the rarest, the ones where he sees the ghost of a demon, and Arthur is there and—and Arthur is beautiful. Arthur’s crown is gold, and Merlin is with him, by his side, _loyal_ , always loyal, and—and—the shadow wields a knife that’s only as real as the demon itself is.

In the worst dreams, there are no dragons at all.

The worst are the ones where that shadowy knife buries its hilt in Arthur’s chest, and disappears. Merlin is screaming, crying out, he has a sword and he’s cutting down anyone that comes close, but the shadow is _gone_ and Arthur is laying at his feet, not bleeding, not breathing, oh god—

Merlin wakes.

He lives another day, unsure what’s real and what’s fake.

He sees Arthur, and Arthur is _alive_ and worried, but nothing Merlin can say will assuage his fears.

Merlin goes to sleep.

He dreams of dragons. He dreams of death.


End file.
